When we feel calmer, we can better support our kids. Learn practical tools to notice triggers, reset in hard moments, and help your child feel safer and more regulated.
M.A. in Clinical Psychology, specializing in Child Studies · B.A. in Special Education
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Lily Ablon: All right Hello, everyone. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Lily. I run Trusted Village. Trusted Village is a supportive community for families navigating neurodiversity, education supports, and child development. We have a parent WhatsApp community, a directory of parent-led, parent-recommended resources. And these free, expert-led conversation on topics, that come up again and again for families. Today's topic is personal for me. I'm parenting a child with autism and ADHD, along with another child who also needs plenty of my attention. I know that… I know that I can best support my kids when I'm calm and regulated, but knowing that, and actually doing it in the middle of chaos, yelling, conflict, or a really hard moment, are two very different things. I wanted and needed some practical help with this myself, so I spoke with Jaclyn and asked whether she would talk me through why parent regulation can be so difficult, and share tools that we can actually use. She generously agreed to open that conversation to all of us. Jaclyn Epstein is a licensed marriage and family therapist with more than 15 years of clinical and educational experience supporting children and families. She holds a bachelor's degree in special education and a master's degree in clinical psychology with specialization in child studies. She also brings lived experience as a parent, which makes her deeply invested in helping families navigate the complexities of raising neurodivergent children. So a quick couple of logistics before we start. Feel free to put questions in the chat as we go, I will be monitoring them. After Jaclyn's presentation, I'll ask a few opening questions that I have burning a hole in my mind while we're still recording, and then I will stop the recording and open it up for all of your questions. You'll be welcome to add them to the chat, I can ask them on your behalf, or unmute and ask them yourself. So with that, Jaclyn, I will turn it over to you.
Jaclyn Epstein: Okay, thank you so much, Lily, for that introduction. You can hear me okay? Like, I'm all good? Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen to start the slide show that I… Set up… Even though I practiced this, I'm like, what do I do now? Where do I go? Okay, here we go. I remember now. I go to share. And… There we go, and I can see some of you, but not all of you. All right, so again, thank you so much, Lily, for having me. It's my pleasure to be here. This sounds like such a lovely community, and one that is so necessary, invaluable, in fact. This is work that is very near and dear to me, and as you touched on, you know, the gap from theory to practice is vast. So, yes, I was working in education, and even, you know, clinically for a while, and then, you know, having my own kids, it's like, I have no idea what I'm doing! So, yes, this is so important to just be able to sit and talk and think together, so it's my pleasure to be here. I wanted to just bring our attention, before we really dive into You know, the flyer addressed Co-Regulation. And yes to Co-Regulation, it's necessary, it's… we all kind of vibe on Co-Regulation. But I named the slide Regulate to Relate, and intentionally left out Co-Regulation because… well, two reasons. One is… I have found that a lot of clinical terms or psychological terms, I think probably because of social media and just access to information these days have become kind of pop psych terms, and they sometimes lose their meaning. We will be addressing Co-Regulation today, but what I really wanted to take this opportunity to do is to shine a light on making space for the parent. Right? So when we talk about Co-Regulation, we're really thinking about, okay, how do we support our child, or how do we co-regulate with another, or with many? And… I wanted this to be about you, parent, or grandparent, or caregiver, as much as possible. So, you can even see in the subtitle, I said, caring for your own nervous system, parenthetically, so you can support theirs. So, as much as we can kind of keep you front and center for this next hour. I want to really encourage you to do that. Even the regulate to relate, it's like, well, relate to who then? And I'll just hammer this home by saying, relate to yourself. Right? How are you in relationship with your own body? And how aware are you of what's happening for yourself? in moment-to-moment, day-to-day interactions, right? And I think it's particularly challenging in our culture. I think we kind of cut ourselves off at the neck, and we're just walking around like we think a lot, but we ignore the feelings a tremendous amount, so… With that said, we'll jump in, and I will go ahead and, just orient us in terms of what the arc of the slide is going to look like, or the slideshow. So we're gonna start out with noticing triggers, which could be really a whole separate presentation, so we're not gonna do a deep dive there, but we're gonna skim the surface, we're going to talk about triggers, and how we can notice them, and why they're there. We'll move into a reset, so I want to give you a practical takeaway, a practical tool. Some of you might already know it. And that's cool, you can practice. We'll be able to talk afterwards if we want to kind of dive in a little bit more into additional tools. how to build a daily and weekly practice, which, I don't know, sometimes I say practice to clients or, you know, myself, and it's like, but it's so important, and it really, it's what makes using the tool a reality or accessible, so… That piece, and then the last 5… 4 or 5 slides, I highlight a neurodiversity lens, and I want to take a moment and acknowledge that. You know, when we're moving through life with either a child who is neurodiverse, or we ourselves might be neurodiverse, it's not just, like, a separate thing that we compartmentalize, it's our daily lived experience. It's the umbrella through which we kind of move. The reason I decided to kind of separate it out, because I wanted to take a moment to really highlight and, amplify the distinction of, like, okay, yeah, so we hear all of this stuff about regulation and Co-Regulation and self-regulation, but it really is… we need to look through an adjusted lens when we are navigating a neurodivergent system. So to really validate that, okay? Alright, I know that, before I go into the triggers, I know that I opened the chat, Lily, but I don't see it now, which is fine, I don't need to. But I do want to say to anyone, if you want to, like, react, I think maybe I'll see that, and I'm a very relational person, so I know that, like, any interaction is welcome. No pressure.
Lily Ablon: Absolutely, and Jaclyn, if there are comments that pop up, I have it open, I'm able to see it. If someone has a burning question, doesn't want to pop on, I'm… I will… I will take the, the baton and, ask you.
Jaclyn Epstein: Great, and feel free to interrupt me if you feel like that's what's best, otherwise I'm just gonna… I'm just gonna do my thing. Okay. So, noticing triggers. Here's… triggers is another word that I find, you know, it's just everywhere. I just saw this really funny movie where, you know, this group of millennials, it was like this dark. like, like, funny, dark film, and someone was really aggressive towards someone, and they were like, well, you triggered me! And, like, I just feel like that's another word that gets thrown around so much, so even putting it in, I was like, I… But, what I'm gonna say is a trigger is not your child's behavior or something else that happens outside of you. It is actually… Your body's rate of it. Right, so, It's like, the call is coming from inside the house, is what I'm tempted to say. you know, the… the idea of a trigger… I'm gonna be a little brain science nerdy for a minute. Again, I won't do a deep dive, but… Triggers are there to keep us safe. So how do they keep us safe? How are they actually, like, what are they doing? What's… what purpose are they serving, aside from… making us freak out and lose our you-know-what with our kids, which is really counterproductive. So, taking a moment, diving over into the kind of more science-y stuff, Dr. Steven Porges. gave us this really incredible framework called polyvagal theory, which some people might have heard of. It's basically a framework to help us understand how our nervous system comes into play Like, how it connects with behaviors and our social engagement system. Okay, so he gave us this term called neuroception. So I want you to think about the brain here, right? Neuro being the brain, ception, the same piece of, like, perception, right? We're perceiving and we're taking in cues. We have this part of our brain that is Constantly, Subconsciously. scanning, am I safe, or am I in danger? Am I… as I'm talking to you, it's doing this, right? It's reading… my vocal porosity, the lines on my face, the softness in my eyes, the weather, even interoception. It's like, oh, do I need to go to the bathroom? Is something in pain? Am I hungry, right? And without being conscious at all, it's gonna send our body a signal if it perceives any kind of threat, right? So, that's good, because that means your body is working. We need that to survive. Imagine if we had to be doing that and everything else all the time. We wouldn't be able to. But what happens, on the unfortunate side, is that Perceived threat versus actual threat is not distinguished. So whether a bear is chasing us. Or, our child is having an intense moment of dysregulation and screaming at the top of their lungs. Our body is gonna drop in. to a state of threat, which means it'll drop into fight, flight, freeze, or shutdown. And we're not going to go deeper into this, just for the sake of time, but I wanted to give you the overview. And so what that looks like, then. is we are going to have a physiological reaction, right? That might be our muscles tensing, our heart rate goes up, our breath gets shallow, because if we need to run from that bear. But then our body is actually doing what it needs to do to help us stay safe and promote survival. Now, if we're trying to support and Co-Regulate with our child, it's really counterproductive, because what happens then, especially with a neurodivergent child, whose nervous system themselves is particularly porous, and what I mean by that is they are hypersensitive. to our nervous system. So, if we get tight, and we get a furrowed brow, they're gonna read that as threat themselves. And that's where, instead of Co-Regulation, we end up Co-escalating is the opposite of co-regulating, right? So… And now that we understand triggers, I want us to… Think for a moment. About how we consider ourselves, Thinking creatures, thinking beings who sometimes feel, when in fact, Surprise, surprise, we're not! We think. No, we feel before we think, right? So this little animation shows how there's sensory input. Subconsciously, the operating system that lets us feel something, or that takes in that perception is so much faster than the frontal lobe, which then processes it, we think about it, we make up whatever story. And then usually, it will send a feedback loop back down, like, basically reinforcing, oh, yep, we're in trouble, right? So… It would be really great if we could catch the narrative and be like, no, no, no, everything's fine. But because there's that distinction in processing time. And what's so interesting is this… or what I find really interesting, anyway. Again, a little bit of brain science here. The vagus nerve, which is the longest nerve in the body, polyvagal. It comes from the back of the brain stem, and it wanders. That's what vagus means, it means the wanderer. It wanders around the body. to our facial muscles, major organs, our heart, our digestive system, which is why our gut sometimes feels all retched up, because that's… it's… sometimes you hear people talk about the gut brain, that's what that is, right? And the amount of signaling that comes from the gut up to the brain Get this, 80%. 20% goes down. But our gut is telling us much more than we think, so… Asking our brain to kind of think our way out of the feeling is not a fair ask. So, just glancing at my notes here, I want you, before I move on to the next slide, I'm going to invite you guys. To think back to a recent instance where you felt triggered. Lily, can you hear the construction, or am I good? Because I can't, but if you can't…
Lily Ablon: I can't. I can hear your voice loud and clear, and that's it, yes.
Jaclyn Epstein: So, okay, think back to a recent instance where you felt triggered. And… it doesn't have to be with your kid, it can be your coworker, it could be road rage, it could be your partner, anything. Okay, and then play it back like a movie so that you're at the starting point from before you were triggered, right? And then almost kind of frame by frame, I want you to slow motion. Play it out for yourself. Take your time, because I really want, as best you can, for you to, like, lock this in. And then freeze frame it, like, pause it. when you got triggered, like, in that moment that you can best identify, okay? And then ask yourself, where did it show up first? Where in your body Right? Did you… where were you… did you feel it? Here are some suggestions. Could be other places. Jaw? Did it get tense? Did your chest get tight or heavy? Did your breath get shallow? Did your hands get tight or sweaty? Right? These are natural physiological reactions that our body will have when we drop into fight or flight, or any of the other sympathetic reactions that come online, right? Okay. So… I don't know if anyone's sharing, because I can't see, which is fine. Anything coming up, Lily?
Lily Ablon: I can share that my chest gets so tight. I'm seeing someone has put their jaw.
Jaclyn Epstein: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, so… This is such… important feedback for ourselves, because this idea of, like, practical tools for when we get triggered, this is a beautiful jumping-off place. If we can recognize this is where it shows up for me, and it's not gonna show up the same place all the time, again. Another workshop another day, but, like, different parts of the body react to different cues for different reasons. But we do have patterns. We have patterns of interactions with our family members, with our systems, with our close ones. And there are lived experiences that we're like, oh, here we are again, you're freaking out about getting dressed, or like, why is mealtime so hard? Or, right? These kind of, like, habituated, challenging instances. So if we know, okay, my jaw gets tight, then that is… I say this to a lot of my kids, my… that I work with. oh, that's your body giving you a clue. Like, thank you, right? We can really… here's where we can be in relationship with our body. It has such wisdom. If we would really let the information in. Okay, so I'm feeling really threatened, that's what that means, right? So… What do we do? Is the question.
Lily Ablon: And someone else in the chat said they feel it in their eyebrows. Does it mean different things if I feel it in my chest, someone feels it in their jaw, someone feels it, you know, further up? Does that…
Jaclyn Epstein: Yeah, it does. I mean, I don't know how hard science-y this is, so I'll say that with a disclaimer, but I have this whole grid that I sometimes reference, and I'm looking through, like, my stack of papers, and I don't know if it's with me at arm's length, but… I'll probably be able to pull it up, even if it's for, like, the Q&A period afterwards, and we can… we can definitely go into that, but there are some clear, kind of, lines drawn between where it shows up in the body and what… physiologically is being triggered, right? Like, what… from the endocrine system is being released, and then we can make whatever meaning we want of that. Again, I don't know if that's where we go from hard science to soft science. But if we think for a moment about, okay, so, like, even just our jaw tightens, our eyebrows might go tense, sometimes I know that my, like, the top of my head tingles, or I can feel it at the back of my neck, and then Whoever we're in relationship with. is… reads that. You know, even if we don't feel like we're expressing it, even if we think we've got the best poker face, and again, our kids have their finger on our pulse, so forget it. Like. cat's out the bag, right? Right. So if we can acknowledge, then it gives us… this is where knowledge is power. If we can, like, know, and then it's a cue, then we have the opportunity to kind of throw a wrench in the system, if we imagine that there are these gears that start spinning, and now we're rolling down the hill of… Co-escalation, like, okay, here's where I'm gonna stop it with myself, right? We can't control anyone else. But we can optimize by influencing others, but we gotta start with us, yeah? Okay, so… what do we do, right? So here's the reset in the moment. So here we're gonna… we're gonna move into the… a practical takeaway tool. The idea that you can't think your way out of this, and I wrote, you must breathe your way out. You don't have to breathe your way out. There are other sensory kind of tools that we can use. This is the one that I grabbed at because it is… scientifically proven to be the most effective, efficient reset for the nervous system, right? So it'll be the quickest way to bring your nervous system back to a baseline of safety. And it's called the Physiological Sigh. If anyone wants to, like, give a thumbs up or raise your hand if you've heard of it, or if you know it, or if you do it, or… that's cool. I don't know if I'll see that, but go for it. And what it is doing, again, a little science dip here, is it's re-inflating collapsed alveoli. So, we have little air sacs in our lungs. And when we regularly breathe, we don't typically inflate all of them. And when we're shallow breathing, if we're in a state of stress, where cortisol is being released, we're less likely to inflate all of them. So what this breath does is it maximizes the inflation of all of those little sacs in our lungs. To basically, maximize the exhale of carbon dioxide. And it… it tells the body, essentially. you're safe. Like, the threat's not real. You are actually not in danger, okay? So, I'm gonna invite us to do it together. I'll model. I'm gonna find my feet on the floor and just feel my bottom in my seat. get grounded in my body, just kind of feel that I am a person inside a body, which we, again, we forget that sometimes. You don't have to close your eyes. I like to, but it's just, up to you, whatever feels safe and good. And you're gonna start with an inhale. And then, just when you think your lungs are full, you're gonna kind of give yourself an extra little sip of breath to really inflate those lungs. And then a long, slow exhale out the mouth. So I'm gonna do it, and you can follow along. I'll do about 3 or 4 of them. Go in… Go again. One more. And we can just notice how we're feeling if we've participated in that. I know I… I always feel a little bit more chill. You can probably hear it in my voice, like… Brought it down a notch. I kind of feel a little sleepy.
Lily Ablon: I feel like I've totally dropped into myself. I'm no longer tied up. I'm just… I'm… I've dropped… I've… I've grounded.
Jaclyn Epstein: Yes, yes, beautiful. And some people like to do it with the exhale of a little, a sound, like a deep, like a voo, which is a Peter Levine, like, somatic thing, which is a massage for the vagus nerve. You could take that or leave it. And there's really… it's not a wrong, there's not a, like, oh, this is the exact way. There are these steps to follow. And it's… It can be so regulating. And it's something that… you know, you can do anywhere you are, right? So you don't have to be able to step away, you do have to remember to do it. That's the hardest part. So, with that said, the remembering to do it will move into building a practice, right? So, what you do on the ordinary days will make the in-the-moment tool work. Right? It doesn't need to be some, like, oh god, when am I gonna fit this into my schedule? Right? So, a lot of times, parents I work with. Find the most success in feeding it into just a… time of day that they're already doing something regular. Like, we all wake up in the morning, you sit up in bed, your feet hit the floor, maybe before you peel the rest of yourself out of bed. You take 3 physiological size. It's gonna take less than a minute, right? Before you brush your teeth, before you go to bed, but a time of day that is already routinized for you. I'll say… I don't know if this is the place to say it, but I'm thinking it now, so I'm gonna say it, that having a visual aid So, if you know that there are certain places in your house, in your car, where it would be really helpful to have a reminder. You know, you could Google physiological side, pull up any image, draw something, you know, I could send you a handout. It can be small, but stick it somewhere so that, again, it's gonna be a cue. Oh, right, right? Because… unless… your trigger reaction, which it might be, is for your pupils to focus on the threat, which is one of the reactions that we do have, biologically, right? And if that happens, quick side note, like, a little kind of biohack for that. That trigger is to soften your eyes and your gaze, and to take in as much of your periphery as possible, because again, it'll kind of counteract That reaction that your body is telling you to do. But I digress. So, a visual aid could be really helpful along the daily practice. Here are some other options. You know, it really is a buffet. The idea is to keep it somatic, meaning connected to the soma, to the body, so you're not trying to think your way out of the feeling. you're practicing being in relationship with your body, right? A weekly tool is excellent, doesn't have to be long, deep, dramatic, extensive. I don't know if within this community, there might already be some kind of weekly opportunity to kind of check in, and that may already be there for you. But just thinking about how you can set yourself up for success is the idea here, right? Okay. Pretty good on timing. Just checking my notes to see if there's anything else I wanted to say here before I move on. Okay. So I think at this point, unless anything is burning, question or comment-wise, we'll move into the slides that, really highlight the distinction between an allistic or a neurotypical experience. We're going to generalize, because that's really all we can do in these Instances versus, a neurodivergent experience, right? Okay. So why Co-Regulation asks more of you on a neurodivergent lens, right? So… The demand for absolute biological calm. You're not just guiding a feeling, you are their external nervous system. I know some parents are like, I don't wanna be. Like, we can resist that as much as we want, it's a big ask. And if we can reframe that for a moment and say, like, wow, what an honor, not to minimize how hard it is, right? I used to have a supervisor at a therapeutic school that I worked at who's… who… in this parent group that we would host, that we would, you know, facilitate. She would say, we can only ask our children to come as far as we've come ourselves. And so this is, again, like, I'm just inviting you to turn the mirror back on yourself. This isn't saying, oh, so you have to be calm for your kid. It's an opportunity to really exercise this skill for ourselves, and it makes our experience of life feel fuller, because it addresses our own well-being. So, thank you, maybe? I don't know. But the idea here is that your kids have x-ray vision. And they know how you're feeling sometimes before you know how you're feeling, and so you can't fake it, which is why it says real calm is required. Neuroception reads the difference. You can say something and be faking it, but that… it's… the words aren't gonna land. Alright, so I see you nodding, Lily. I hope this is landing for other individuals. This is… I have learned an experience that runs deep for many parents of neurodivergent systems. And then going on to the next, and you'll see these kind of overlap and interweave with one another. But I went ahead and I separated them anyway. Okay, so high stamina emotional endurance. Any… any runners out there? This is not a sprint, this is a marathon. In a neurotypical… experience of dysregulation. I don't like to say meltdown, I feel like that's… that can feel disrespectful. So, you know, I'll say dysregulation. It can resolve in 15 or 20 minutes. And here, with us, it can take hours to settle, and that is so taxing on the system. I mean… Our nervous systems are built to sustain, kind of, bursts of stress. But the prolonged experience is so hard on our system. So here's where we get to… Offer ourselves a whole lot of compassion and grace. We're humans having a human experience. we're not going to be perfect, and the expectation of that is not even really going to benefit our kids. Like, even if we could be perfect, right? It's not real. So, just again here, the knowing of, okay. If this is gonna take however long it's gonna take for them to go through the tunnel, because there's no exit. You gotta go all the way through it. how am I going to be taking care of myself throughout? Right? If you do have a partner, another adult. who you can pass the baton to, that is invaluable, excellent. I would recommend, you know, having even, like, a… A word, a code word, if you will. It doesn't have to be secret, it could be like, I need to tap out. Again, that's great modeling for our kids, right? They need not see us as impenetrable. And if we can't, if we can't step away, then knowing, okay, here I can… I can take this breath, I can reset my vision. I can tap into my shoulders, right? Okay, what's the next one say? total inhibition of natural instincts. So, it makes sense, again, just to reiterate that our triggers will send us into a state of dysregulation ourselves. while, interestingly, that works for some… and I say some, because it's not across the board ever, but, you know, and I think nowadays it almost feels a little bit old school or traditional to kind of, like, use a firm voice and get tense. There's been this big swing towards more kind of gentle parenting. And still, there's something kind of valuable and definitely interesting about when the mama bear or the papa bear gets, like, firm and kind of growls. It's like, it shocks the child into, like, oh, dude, I gotta, like, listen up, and like, and almost there's, like, maybe in instances where it works. A subconscious message that's like, oh, they got me. Like, you know, like, they've taken on the stance of protection, so I don't need to. But what happens in a neurodiverse system, more than not. is a firm voice will register as a threat, and that's then where the co-escalation comes in. And then, you know, again, if it's kind of coming from a place where there's a loss of control on our part, as opposed to the intentional, like, I'm gonna use a firm voice, right? Where if we can narrate, hey, I'm getting really frustrated. My voice is getting firm. because I'm feeling overwhelmed, that's another way that we can bring our attention to ourselves and narrate and model, and it's not about, like, a threat, like, hey, if you don't pull it together, I'm gonna lose it. It's more just, here I am noticing, I'm getting tense, this… it's hard right now. Okay? And oftentimes, less talk, once the dysregulation has begun, is gonna be much more beneficial. Because getting through the sensory overload. It's gonna be with less chatter. Right. So… The inhibition of natural instincts is… helpful. I don't know that I love the word inhibition, but maybe, like, the awareness, the growing awareness continuous, proactive self-monitoring. So yeah, this touches, it might feel redundant, right, because this kind of, like, it's… it's a marathon, it's not a sprint, lands here as well, but… what I was thinking about more here is the overtime, so not necessarily while the child or your child is dysregulated, or something is hard, but more just if we can think of ourselves As the thermostat instead of the thermometer. we can… We have a greater opportunity to respond instead of react, both for ourselves as well as our child. Right? If we can kind of catch the, oh, something's happening there, we're going to be able to do that more readily if we're in touch with ourselves. If we're not in touch with ourselves, we're elsewhere. We're, like, in our thinking brain, we're not we're not as grounded, right? As embodied in our experience, whereas if we're embodied, we can take our child in, we can know where we're at, we can see if they're starting to get dysregulated, and then we can, if possible, come in and scaffold or accommodate in a helpful way, as much as possible. But again. No expectation of controlling anyone other than yourself. So that's what I was thinking about with this slide, right? Your stability is their tool. Oh, and this, this one. I thought that might have been the last, but this is the last one. Under this, this neurodivergent lens piece in this one. I find lens pretty deeply for a lot of parents, because… I think we can be really hard on ourselves. It's really exhausting. And then when the… The dysregulation is over. And there's no felt sense of resolution. or reconnection, right? It says here. You know, in a neurotypical world, let's say, recovery ends in, Let's see, what does it say? It cycles back. Ends in connection. A hug, an apology, a smile. Whereas a closer look to a neurodivergent lens, recovery is often silent, and sometimes at a distance. And that can feel really, really hard. And we can invite ourselves, again, to be gentle with ourselves, and reframe it as it's not problematic, it's not wrong. It's not broken, it's just different. The amount of stress That a nervous system undergoes when there's a dysregulation so deep, so intense, for so prolonged a time. it's, like, maybe equitable to burnout, right? In a low-grade kind of way, and so just coming back to a baseline might need Just no input whatsoever. Space and time. And so to not take that personally. Now, it doesn't mean that we can't ever revisit. You know, it's very individual. Some kids can talk about it the next day. Some kids just can't reflect at all. It doesn't mean that you can't, right, as a parent. Oh, that was so hard. And we got through it, right? It can be as simple as that. So I think there are just a couple more slides, and then we'll wrap up with the presentation part. The protection paradox. I didn't know really where to put this, so I… I found its home here. And there are a couple different ideas floating around in here, why shielding isn't the same as safety. If you look at the bottom here, the instinct is to maybe overprotect, driven by our own trigger. or hypervigilance, not… so this is, like, determining, like, is there an actual threat, or am I… is my body just reading a threat queue, but it's not accurate? Right? Again, the trigger is so fast, because it's working. If we needed to get out of the way of a vehicle that's moving down the road and is about to hit us, we don't want our brain slowing down and thinking, well, what should I do here? It wouldn't… we'd be dead, right? The instinct to jump in front of the vehicle to save our child, right, is… it's instinctual. So that's the paradox here, where it's like, it's counterintuitive to put yourself first, is what I said in the middle. So I don't want you to think about this as putting yourself first. Instead, I just want you to think you're taking care of yourself. Parenthetically, you are then… actually servicing your child and the system, but like, okay, you, still you, all day, every day, you, as much as possible. Right? So, that is, I think, where we'll wrap. I just did this little sweet ending slide, this is a practice, it's not a performance, and, you know, if we wanted to make a goal, it might be, okay, I'm gonna catch it a little earlier each time. Yeah, and so… I'm gonna stop my share. And… toss it back over to you, Lily.
Lily Ablon: Thank you, Jaclyn. So much wealth of knowledge there. I love you getting science-y and nerdy there, too, of 80% of our gut goes to… the signals go to our brain, and so, really, we can kind of trust our gut or think about our gut, in addition to just the breaths, the moments, and taking care of ourself. before I stop the recording and open it up to everyone, I have a few questions that I think many parents might relate to. The first is, I worry that… essentially, I'm doing damage to my kids. You know, I see that these… I hear that these early years are an important window for, for teaching regulation. But I still lose my cool more than I'd like. And then afterward, I'm afraid that I've modeled the wrong habits, or caused lasting harm. My kids are gonna go to therapy, they're gonna, you know, rebel against me, you know, things are gonna happen in their future because of… This critical window right now. how can I repair, without over-explaining, getting stuck in guilt? How can I repair also to help teach my kids regulation? Especially when they're neurodivergent and they, you know, need the silence, I need the silence. Just… Help me in my own spiral of the damage I might be doing to my kids right now.
Jaclyn Epstein: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, so we touched on this very briefly yesterday when you and I checked in, and I was thinking about it more, and I do keep coming back to, kind of, the starting off point, right? So… it's almost like you're still vibing on the queue of threat, right? The trigger that came up, maybe in the dysregulation, and then you behaved in some kind of way, you reacted some kind of way, you screamed, you yelled, whatever. It's like your body is still in that state. of threat, because something else that Dr. Porges, who, you know, did the whole polyvagal theory, who gave us that framework. I don't actually know if it's him now that I'm saying that, or if it was Deb Dana, who's a clinician who worked with him, who really brought the polyvagal theory into, like, the clinical framework for therapists. But one of them says, story matches state. And what that means is, the story we tell ourselves is gonna match the state that our body's in. So if we're freaked out, and we're in a state of threat, or fear, right, fight or flight, the story we're telling ourselves is gonna be in line with that. It's not like we're gonna be yelling at our kids, and then afterwards be like, everything's fine. They'll be fine, right? So, I want to just bring your attention to that, because what we can then notice is, if we're telling ourselves horror stories. We can go, oh, this is coming from fear.
Lily Ablon: Hmm.
Jaclyn Epstein: invitation to pause. And really explore this when I feel more regulated. Because you'll be able to think more expansively. I mean, again, our kids will go to therapy in the future. How much control do we have over that, right? Like, they're out there in the world. But I don't want to be doing the one damage… I don't want to be doing damage, like, oh, you're their parent, like, there's a certain… there's a certain amount of damage we're all gonna do? I mean, it kind of comes with the territory, and not to minimize the, like, no, Jaclyn, you don't understand, like, I'm really falling down on the job here, I'm yelling every day. I mean. We could look at our patterns and go, oh, what does this actually look like? And would it be helpful for me to get some support, right? Is this something I should do something about? Action absorbs anxiety, so if we're really anxious about something, we can do something about it. That might help, kind of. Metabolize some of these. feelings and fears and stories. The repair is invaluable. It doesn't have to be deep and lengthy, and I'll say that I know firsthand that it can feel like, oh my gosh, how many times can I apologize before it just doesn't even mean anything? Like, I've apologized for this so many times. Stating, modeling for our children what an apology can look like in the sense of, you know. I really regret that I handled it this way, that I… that I screamed. It's… it's because I was really flooded. Right? Not an excuse, just kind of connecting the dots. And I am really working on taking some deep breaths when I feel that way, so that I don't scream. So there's the… Right? The three-step tango of the apology of, like, this is what I did that I regret.
Lily Ablon: Right.
Jaclyn Epstein: Maybe why I did it, so that there's some understanding, not an excuse. And then what I'm gonna try and do differently. Right. So I don't know if that addressed… I mean, your question was packed.
Lily Ablon: It was packed. We can do multiple sessions. but that's, that's helpful, and the, and the stating of, recognizing and using the… telling them what happened afterwards. also helps, it sounds like helps to model for them when they maybe lose their cool. That's a way to maybe help Teach them while I'm learning myself.
Jaclyn Epstein: For sure, for sure. Yeah, I mean, this idea that we, like, you know, when our kids are having a hard time, we say, like, take a deep breath, and they're like, no, or they freak out more. Right. And this is why the practice… this is why we ourselves need to practice On a daily basis, because that… you know, being told to do something when you're dysregulated is just not gonna land anywhere.
Lily Ablon: Yes.
Jaclyn Epstein: Right?
Lily Ablon: Now I want to jump to a question about when I see my kids fighting. And this is very common in our household, and it dysregulates me so quickly. my kids get physical with each other. It's, you know, they'll push each other's chair with their feet at the breakfast table, or they're… they'll accidentally bump into each other, or, you know, they all…
Jaclyn Epstein: Incidentally.
Lily Ablon: Exactly. At this very moment, they both need to use the sink to wash their dish, and then they're fighting over who gets to, who gets to use the sink, and they're just screaming and pushing, and they're physical with each other, and I'll, you know, try to start calling me with, like, let's have safe bodies, take turns, move away, but then they don't seem to hear me. Then I escalate, I start yelling, I become dysregulated. I need to intervene right away and make sure that there's no harm happening to them, so… What can I do in those first few seconds to keep everyone safe. Without losing my own calm, or by… to regain my calm. Specific actions or words that can work better in the moment?
Jaclyn Epstein: Yeah, yeah, it's like, it's like, I wish I could give you, like, a magic wand of spell words, and then, poof, right? That's gonna work. And it is so individual, it's so system-based, which is… Probably the most annoying answer to hear. But it's true. And what comes up for me in response in this moment, Lily, are kind of two things. And this isn't to say you haven't done this, I don't know what you've tried, right? Usually we try a host of things, so, so forgive me if you've already tried these. But one thing is, you know, completely separate from the moment. if there's a pattern of interaction that you've noticed where you can kind of umbrella it, or broad stroke it, and have a conversation with your kids, the car is an excellent place to do it, everyone's strapped in, you know, because they're walking away from the conversation. I've noticed that this thing keeps happening.
Lily Ablon: Hmm.
Jaclyn Epstein: Do you guys have any ideas How we might be able to make that work better.
Lily Ablon: Hmm.
Jaclyn Epstein: So, really to… you know, and it's like, the meta here is, no, no, no, no, you guys aren't in charge, you're not making the decision, but I'll take your feedback, right? Like, I'm still the captain of the ship, but we can think together. That's what I want you to hold in mind, right? It's not like, oh, you guys need to figure out how to solve this. I mean, ultimately, they do. What I hear you saying is that it's a safety thing, right? Because I think that's important for us, if I back up a scooch. If they're messing with each other, this is the sandbox for figuring out boundaries and lines. I mean, that is some of the most beautiful stuff in sibling relationships, is the unconditional, like, you will always be my brother, you will always be my sister. That's not to say that things can't… go outside the lines and be traumatic. And that's where, as parents, we need to kind of watch and go, like, is my trigger reading actual threat here? Are bodies unsafe? Or is there something deeper happening here that's really problematic? Or, you know, did my brother do this to me when I was a kid, and that's why I'm getting so activated? So kind of looking more deeply at what's triggering us is valuable in this context. Getting a conversation online with them. So that you could, you know, then when it comes up, you also have the, what's the word I'm looking for? It's like the leverage, almost, to be like, this is what I was talking about, like, here we are again. Right. Right? And then if they suggested something, there might be more power in using their suggestion, because they suggested it. The last thing that I'm inclined to say about this is… I think sometimes we want to move in like a, let's, let's use safe bodies, da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and if we know at this point, oh, I know how this goes.
Lily Ablon: Yeah.
Jaclyn Epstein: You could just, like, you could just get in there. Like, again, you're the captain of the ship. That's a… that's a Susan Stifleman, she's a therapist, That's, like, a phrase that she uses a lot. Like, you're in charge, so you can own that without it being mean, or harsh, or demonstrative. You can just be firm and clear. And so, if they're getting in each other's face, you just get in between them and say, like, nope, you gotta wait. And sometimes it helps to… if there's an adult that was in your life when you were a kid, or someone comes to mind who's, like, clear, and calm and anchored. And kind of, like… bring… bring them into you. Like, allow them to, you know, be on your shoulder. That can be sometimes, orienting in those moments when we don't feel so confident ourselves. Yes. And then just practicing with that person on our shoulder to kind of find our footing more clearly.
Lily Ablon: I love that visualization of, I've got this person, and also, I'm the captain, I'm gonna come in. Fantastic. Jaclyn, thank you so much. I have many more questions for you, but I do want to open it up. With that said, I'm going to stop the recording now, and then we will open it for questions.